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Gamezino Busted?

The title may be a bit misleading as we do not know the circumstances but a short while ago an email from Gamezino saying they are going out of business has surfaced. Here is what it says:

“Our business model of buying discounted iTunes gift cards, and using those cards to purchase items inside the game, is no longer sustainable. It has become too expensive for us to buy new cards, and we are no longer able to maintain a profit. Instead of doubling our prices, we have decided to close our doors.

We will stop accepting new orders on Monday 8/26/13 at 2pm EST.

GameZino will stop accepting new orders on Monday 8/26/13 at 2pm EST. After that, the doors will be closed for good. So get ‘em while they’re hot. They wont last long”.

So could we finally see the end of Gamezino? I am willing to bet the gift card theory is not accurate. From what we have heard, EA has been planning to take action against GameZino although we do not know for sure if this announcement is a result of that. BUT, our hope is that this company sees some type of action against them for their unfair and misleading business practices. We will update this post as more information comes in. However, if any of you receive legitimate info on the situation please fell free to add it in the comments below.

More News: Could Gamezino then be shutting down Tips? Well we are at least hoping for an apology from them. But just yesterday it was rumored that Gamezino’s website was being sold and now it’s shutting down? This is very strange due to the fact that just last week Gamezino was looking for helpers on their site as well as Tips and paying them for posts. Of course any info right now is just speculation and we hope to relay confirmed legitimate information for all of you.

Update 26/08/13:It currently 2:00pm here in England and I have worked out the time and in my time zone Gamezino should be gone by 7:00pm. Since this post was published news has opened up on TSTO Tips, Nuclear Video’s HD and Reddit. TSTO Tips have posted an article explaining about Gamezino shutting down and in my theory I think that TSTO Tips is here to stay and is going to be passed on to Nuclear Video’s Hd. Last night after I logged off, Nuclear Video’s HD posted a video of the news of Gamezino and after all the hate comments it was removed seconds after. Now there is a post on Reddit which explains the departure of Gamezino and a use called “Allenisastud” and says he is the real Allen, but on another post he has said that he supports Allen and Gamezino? This is all very confusing and there will be a post later on to see if Gamezino has packed there bags.

(The image of Nuclear videos is his recent upload and not the original)

WARNING:Please do not purchase from Gamezino as your account could be suspended due to hacking!

170 thoughts on “Gamezino Busted?”

Huh – I got items from GameZino (namely, the SuperCollider, which I was gutted to have missed) purely based on the recommendation from TSTOTips. Had no idea there was anything shady behind it :-/ The TSTOTips site went downhill once original TSTOTips stopped posting so much, but after the crap he got from people having about gun rights after some dialogue in the game (which he hadn’t, as I recall, even made a comment about, purely reported on) I really couldn’t blame him. Had no idea there was anything going on behind the scenes.

Dayum. Bit of a bummer when I purchased things in good faith, under the impression that it was an honest thing – I don’t know enough about how it would work to be suspicious, TSTOTips (Mike?) had always been so good about posting good tips, it didn’t occur to me someone else was posing as him. I really hope it won’t end up messing up my account or my game.

Potentially made a real pig’s breakfast of things for people who had no idea the service was not legit :-/

I wouldn’t worry, there have only been rumors that EA was going to crack down on those that used those types of services but a lot of people were genuinely scammed and I think they understand that. I think they just want it all to be done with as much as we do. You should be fine.

Gamezino did work for a long time. How they were doing it, it probably was not dicounted gift cards. Everyone that lost money probably did it on the tail end of their business being shut down. I was expecting EA to do take action against them at some point.

Has anyone had any luck w PayPal? I keep getting negative responses from em…I feel like Gamezino stole from us by charging for doing something dishonest n disguising it as something legit…n now I feel that PayPal is stealing from us cause they r providing no help n r backing up a thief…

I thought Mr. T was the one who posted about GameZino. I did get all of the items I ordered, and have been spending and hording my donuts. I changed my password right after I got my items. I knew right away it was some hack when I got 2500 donuts and all my old donuts were missing and my old money was missing and now at 2 mil. And the fact that I had to restart a level. They cant keep charging my paypal account can they? IDK but I am happy right now. Why did you sell TSTOtips in the frist place?

T didnt post anything about gamezino. That was Allen cox the owner. Yes by the sounds of it EA have updated their software to cut out the hack. This could be why level 34 was released when it was. I think it was a bit premature. And that is the reason for gamezino closing its doors. All that T said was that he sold the site for legal reasons and he wasn’t allowed to say. Maybe its something to ask on tips.

They really banked on TSTOTips’ good name. I’m miffed on my own account, and will be very sad if I lose game items or my account in the long term, but I’m completely pissed off on Mr T’s account. He quite rightly had the trust of a lot of people because he’d been doing such a good job, and GZ used and abused his reputation. What a great shame this all is.

Anyway, I will shut up about it now, it’s just that I literally only found out in the last half hour and am a bit blindsided by the whole affair. At least I now know why TSTOTips has gone downhill so badly.

Mr T isn’t here and we cannot and will not answer for him (why he sold the site) but he did not write the Gz post, the new owner used his alias to scam people into buying his (we suppose) mods and hacks, claiming it as a legit thing (it is not). EA may remove your iligit items as punishment for breaking the terms of the game, probaby won’t remove your account, though, and Gz, as far as I understand, have no problem with shady dealings so it would not surprise me if they keep charging you even after they’ve gone out of business. Read my Let it be post for all the info we have on this sordid affair.

PayPal has refused my refund today and I explained the situation thoroughly to them and even though they said they are running an investigation on gamezino themselves I’m still not allowed to be refunded for my purchases. I think that’s total BS! But I have another issue as well. After gamezino put those items in my town they had somehow reset my experience bar so now everyone has leveled up to 34 and I’m only half way through level 33 even though I had surpassed level 33 experience beforehand. Is there a way to fix this? Please help!

I truly regret doing this whole gamezino thing….I only found out just yesterday morning…it has become a total mess. I hope they get what’s coming to them for stealing ppls hard earned money. But thanks for the reply, ill just try to catch up to level 34 as quickly as possible. I’m glad you guys are back in action as well! Keep up the good work!

Yeah, I have the same problem, PayPal is not refunding me the money cause it’s a virtual intangible asset, n they r running n investigation in order to reimburse me, although they did say that the Gamezino account is locked they still won’t refund me the money, n they say that many ppl have reported the problem w Gamezino…n today I got an email from Gamezino saying that mike and the gang r ex-employees from Gamezino who are trying to ruin their reputation…n that Gamezino is trying to tell me the truth about the issue cause there’s no issue cause ea hasn’t taken action against em…I’m gonna try PayPal tomorrow again…this is so frustrating…

Dealing with paypal to get a refund is such a pain. They will not give me a refund because it was a virtual item. They did however tell me that they have noted my dislike/problems for gamezino and if they receive more they will ‘investigate’ into his account. I hope innocent people who fell for his scam get their money back eventually.

I also emailed EA and they told me that they are aware of gamezino and will take action. As for deleting accounts, I’m guessing if you used gamezino more then once and never used the EA store those are the accounts that will be deleted.

I’m curious if Paypal could be held liable for doing business with Gamezino if it was not a legal business. Also, what about iTunes? Will they jump on board as their name was used as a front from Gamezino? I don’t think anyone realized the potential severity of what’s happened especially dealing with such huge companies.. I certainly love and support what everybody is doing, I’ve never met more generous people dedicated to giving their own time and resources to help others! I don’t want to see anything happen, but I can’t believe that Gamezino would be so bold as to use iTunes, which would want to protect their name from any dealings with a company that is not obtaining gift cards like they said. Also, with Paypal, I know that Paypal has an obligation to work with companies that are legitimate. I don’t think they did background check or looked into Gamezino like they should have. I think there are a lot of people and companies at risk and we have no idea what is to come. I also am worried EA may use this as an example to send a strong statement to the public about the seriousness of hacking… Has anyone else thought about all the people and or other businesses who’s reputations are now put on the line because of this? If something does go down, I know there would or could be a potential class action law suit against Paypal for doing business with Gamezino, so I think their is more heat than just a 14 year old kid and a website going down. What do you think?

Anyone can do create a Paypal account so. Its not a business in the sense that you think it is. It is an online alternative for people to not use the personal bank account publicly. And in the grand scheme of things it has nothing to do with PayPal or their services. Its GameZino and their misleading business practices.

Hey I was a long time reader at tips and did not fall for the scam. But I am writing here to gey somw clarification on what’s going on from now on.
I was so disappointed when I saw the post on TSTotips regarding gamezino, because I worked for long and hard to develop my town and I disnt want to cheat my way and was sad to see others buying stuff wgile I worked hardfor.
But now I am confused where I can get my inof from. I loved all the writers on the old tips and want to follow them. I have seen Mike’s pos here so I’m assuming they moved to this new site?
There are posts still made on tips by many random people since no notixe was given I don’t kbow who they are.
The thing that makes me the most sad is all the old posts that were so well written. were they transfered here? And aare they still on the other site?
Alsothe huge number of visiter… millions. I hope this site gains popularity again to return to the precious status.

Just because some of us fell for the scam does not mean we didn’t work hard in their springfields. I have been playing since literally day one. I played through all te problems and work very hard on my down more then once daily. I have also bought lots of real donuts and even a large pack during a Gil run, and will proabbly buy more in the future. I actually believed this was legit and EA was going to get the money on their end. All I did was buy some donuts no other products. Still wish I didn’t. Oh well. What’s done is done.

Hi momomoomoo.
Unfortunately we have to rewrite all the posts but we are all here except T and Werdna. Im not sure what happened to Werdna. They are both very welcome to join us here. Im glad you have found us here and i am well aware on how bad its getting on tips. In fact, i saw a quiz posted the other day and 3 of the answers were wrong. So im not suprised.
If you want to see the full story you can go to tstotipshelp.wordpress.com and its the first post on a site that ended up being here and we are now moving on. I hope you get your answers. Good to see you here.
Mickus

I cant’ believe i just found out about this gamezino scam today. I feel stupid. I knew something was strange at tstotips with all the new writers one of them rude. Now I know better than to be staying up all hours in the morning when my brain is exhausted. So happy to have found you guys over here so I can still get all the same great help.

Ya you are right in the same position I was in yesterday. I unfortunately fell for the scam after a couple weeks of contemplating it. I figured tsotips is a great site and very trustworthy. Also figured if they use PayPal they have to be legal. Wow was I wrong (read my post two down). I really feel stupid to be taken like this and now worry I’m going to loose my tapped out account. I only bought some donuts no characters or anything like that. I hope if anything they only take the donuts away and nothing else. I hate the feeling of being scammed by the site and then by gamezino. I only found out about gamezino being a scam yesterday. Then I looked up gamezino scam as I started to get nervous they could use my CC. When I searched gamezino scam I found this article and shortly after realized what had gone on. The I noticed the site I use to love had been born again. It all made sense as tstotips has been very strange the last few weeks. Thankfully we have a new site to come to. Good job guys.

Thank you. It was the only right thing to do when everything was happening. Don’t call yourself stupid, ever. It happens to the best of us and does not signify being smart or stupid. Welcome to Topix, pull up a chair and stay awhile.

Thanks Mike S. you were actually the best part of tsotips specially near the end as I said in my first and second post. I was a supporter of you there and almost felt the need to post that day when people were giving you a hard time. I have no idea where people get off today getting mad at someone who is providing a free service and only giving their own opinions. I never did because I never post anywhere. This was the first time I felt the real need to come out and speak. Gamezino and the new tsotips is ridiculous for the scam they pulled. I really hope those of us that fell for the scam which was very underhanded don’t get punished by EA. good luck with this site. Thank you again for the free service you provide. I enjoy coming to the site and reading many of the posts. Specially the spoilers. Keep us updated on this if you can. Hope this site works out for you.

I almost bought some donuts.. as I had read and trusted the site. I figured if they can do this for money.. maybe I could do this for myself for free.. So I spent hours researching their “legit” way and found out it can’t be done without hacking or jail breaking the device. When I found that out.. I decided I best not purchase any donuts. I don’t want my device hacked. I’ll stick with my 5 dollars in scratchers per month.

Hello and welcome back. I was a long time tsotips reader and sad to see what happened. Actually I am someone who totally got taken by gamezino and tips. I never ever use my CC online but happened to this one time and wow am I upset. I really thought it was legit. I figured because they were being mentioned on tips which seemed like a very legit sote and had good ties with EA or again so I thought. Also I thought because they used PayPal they couldn’t be fraudulent. I am so unhappy I fell for this. I also think it was not nice of you mike to say anyone who reads the Internet should have known. I really did not know and made my purchase on the 23rd. I had no clue. I contemplated it for so long because I wasn’t sure but I kept seeing stuff on tips and people on tips kept resonnding saying how good it was. I am now really upset as I have been playing since literally day one also I have bought plenty of real donuts. I actually believed them and thought EA was getting the money and that i was just getting it cheaper. I have heard of stores selling off stock and sometimes giftcards do go for 50-70% off. Is EA going to cancel my account? Any way to get them not to? I want to dispute my purchase as I am not happy using a fraudulent company. This is also my first time ever posting on a website so I hope I stayed within regulations. You guys were great on tsotips. I think mike s. you were doing a great job specially when you we’re on your own, also thought sometimes you got some unfair feedback. I actually wondered what happened to you on that site. It all makes sense now. I really hope I don’t loose my Simpsons account. If you have any info that would be greatly appreciated.

Read my Let it be post. You should be ok. We are all sad and angry over what happened and sometimes, when frustration takes control, we forget to be polite. You’re not a fool for believing in that clever scam.

Wow thanks for such a quick reply, was not expecting that. I read your post and it helped a bit. I do hope you guys keep us posted and maybe put in a good word with EA for all of us who got scammed. I didn’t mean anything by my rude comment I just meant that they shouldn’t assume anything. Like I said I really am an honest person who has bought lots of real donuts. I have never jail broken any i device and have bought over 600 apps. I just really hope this one bad decision doesn’t cost me my account as Im still a little nervous. Lol not sure what I would do as I am a complete tapped out addict. Thanks again for your quick reply. Thanks you all for this amazing free service you provide and thank you for any future information you may be able to provide.

Why would they admit to their wrong? If they’re liars and deceitful, what gain is in it for them to admit their fraudulent activities and “business”? Lets be realistic. We’re all glad and happy that they’ve closed down their business but it be even better knowing they really got busted.

After having used Gamezino and then changing my password, Is it possible for gamezino to still access my game?

I ask b/c about a month ago I mysteriously received 500 donuts. I assumed that they came from EA as a gift for when they fixed my krustyland trash appearing in my town glitch(stupid I know). I then saw an email from gamezino, stating that they gave them to me b/c of late delivery of my first order.

Really glad to see Gamezino going down.
I am also one of the pretty naive customers :( thanks to paypal I got every Cent back I spent on them, now I just hope EA is not going to ban me, good for me I have bought donuts before in the official way, hope this makes a difference for EA, fingers crossed.
On the other hand I could understand EA to ban me, for this stupidity I would deserve it quite well…

Woohoo! great news after all they did to undermine and deceive users, owners and contributors on the original TSOTips. Hope EA will continue to press legal action and not let them get away with having obtainrd money by deception.

Just had a look at the “old” site again myself, and though the big donut-banner is rather off-putting, I scanned through the content and found a post by someone who roundly condemns “cheakers” (i.e. cheaters and hackers). Seems a bit odd if the owner of the site makes his money selling a hack…

I am wondering now if the authors are really that naive, or if this is another elaborate ploy to sell gamezino as something legit: “If the site condemns hacking, and they promote it, than it can’t be a hack.” or something along that line.

That NuclearvideosHD kid is something else. He went on and on promoting that horrible site for months and even in his latest video where he talks about Gamezino shutting down, he still had the balls to say that where they bought their “itunes gift cards”, they couldn’t anymore because it was getting too expensive.

I mean, seriously? After everything that has happened he’s still going to try and play that card? No one is “buying” into that garbage. (Pun not intended). I wish Youtube would shut down his account and his silly videos and his hacked towns. This was somewhat of a vent and I apologize, I just don’t like to see people like him get off the hook with no repercussions.

I haven’t been on the former website since I found this, but this is their new post. Thought I would check after seeing the post about gamezino closing… what a crock of you know what… Fake tips posts that he just went on their website and saw it was closing and says how sad he is to see this legitimate way of buying old items & donuts closing… This was probably their way of getting in a huge amount of sales before they close… After everything that has happened and since EA is onto them it is pretty stupid in my opinion to post something like this… I ordered from them once at the beginning when we thought it was endorsed by Tips, and regret it, but I don’t understand how peope are still doing this even though we all know now it is an illegal hack. Well I guess to each his own, I hope the owners get what is coming to them for lying to everyone… Sorry about the long post! Had to share this ridiculous post!

It’s a sad day for all Tapped Out fans. GameZino is closing.

I just went to gamezino.com to buy some donuts, and saw a huge sign on their front page. Apparently, they are going out of business because their business model is no longer sustainable. Which makes sense, because how many people are willing to sell their gift cards for 50-70% off? The supply was bound to dry up sooner or later. Here is what the sign says:

“Our business model of buying discounted iTunes gift cards, and using those cards to purchase items inside the game, is no longer sustainable. It has become too expensive for us to buy new cards, and we are no longer able to maintain a profit. Instead of doubling our prices, we have decided to close our doors. We will stop accepting new orders on Monday 8/26/13 at 2pm EST. After that, the doors will be closed for good. So get ‘em while they’re hot. They wont last long”.

It was fun while it lasted. Having a legitimate way to by donuts at huge discounts was really nice. They are going to stay open until tomorrow, so I’m going to buy as much as I can, and stock up! After that, it’s back

I bet half the comments placing orders are fake. I noticed that dom guy who was abusing mike in one post on here was all positive towards them. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was that w***er allen cox stirring stuff up on here and then placing fake customer reviews on tips. Oh well they will get what is coming to them. Surely they can’t be stupid enough to actually think they will get away with it.

I was thinking the same thing. They are probably commenting under different user names to make it look like everyone else is doing it. I am curious to see if their website really does shut down today at 2pm.

Had a look on tips, there is a post about them (gamezino) going out of business trying to get some last minute customers. I put a comment in asking if tips was closing too. Didn’t pass moderation. Unsurprisingly my comment hoping ea destroys them didn’t pass through either.

I fell for it too. I used PayPal and I disputed the transaction after I found out what was going on. Within two days PayPal decided in my favor and refunded my money. As soon as I got my money back Gamezino gave me my donuts that I no longer wanted, but at least I never paid them I guess.

I received what I paid for…I will not do any further business with them, but I think it would be dishonest to go to PayPal to report the fraud. I guess I was lucky. Make sure you all change your passwords.

I disputed it with paypal and never got a refund. I mentioned fraud and they decided in their favour. They would have been getting heaps of disputes mentioning gamezino, not sure why it wasn’t decided in my favour.

I fell for this crap, too, and just discovered the truth last night after placing an order with them yesterday. I changed my password before they could log in, thankfully. I have asked for a refund of all my orders straight to GameZino, but if they don’t comply, then I’ll file a dispute with Paypal. I hate that I ever ordered in the first place. Hopefully, my account won’t be banned. I also posted a negative comment on TSTOTips page, but I’m sure it won’t go past moderation.
Thanks for restarting a new site for us loyal fans. Hopefully, this site will remain safe.

I just called my bank to dispute the transaction as paypal didn’t give me my money back. Hopefully the bank will. They cancelled my card too and are issuing a new one. I feel better now that gz won’t have access to my account anymore.

I seem to remember a post on the Tips website that Mike published asking whether it was worth using a hack or not. This was promptly taken down and then followed with an apology with Mike admitting to using a donut hack himself in the following post.
Tut tut!

And your point is what? I made a post regarding hacking, yes. Not whether it was worth it or not and it’s common knowledge that I have used a hack before. The main issue here i I didn’t SELL a hack or take money for one. Anyone with half a brain can install and use hack and I did, it was a hack that introduced me to this game and I regret nothing. But I’m not charging people to use the hack and telling them some lame ass gift card excuse. So do me a favor and keep your Ta’s for when you make an actual point. Thank you.

This has all come about because of a hack; a hack which the ORIGINAL tsto tips bought into, using it to publish spoilers for upcoming content. An illegal hack, the original tsto tips and their writers knew that. But they still used the info from it. A lot of egg on all of your faces!

I understand wishing everyone to be able to have a voice, but comments like these are purely intended to instigate, nothing positive will come from comments like this, and we will never hear from this person (at least under this name) again. Do these comments really need to pass through moderation?

Yes. These comments need to pass through moderation. All sides must be given a voice. From what I understand only mr T had access to those files and he never promoted any types of illegal actions, rather the opposite. It’s one thing to spread hacked info (wikileaks) for free and a whole other to make it into some shady business (gz).

Thank you Monkey! :-) We don’t want to be like gz and not put through the negatives and I’m not that insulted if some anonymous troll disses me. The troll don’t know me so why should I care? Other times I stand corrected and have learned something new.

Actually. None of the original writers of tips condone hacking. We are all strongly against it. Secondly, all our information on tips – spoilers came from the game files. Thirdly, this hack was created by spAnser to help people effected by the harp of death, EA’s most deadliest glitch of all time. So please get your facts straight before making bogus accusations.

Maybe I’ve been liveing under a rock lol but who is spanser and what hack did he create I had the harp of death but broke it more by accerdent then anything else with a iphone5 a few days later I found tstotips and at the time he was helping quite a lot of people with the harp so how does spanser fit in

SpAnser writes blogs for reddit.com. He also reads the files and releases the information. He created the hack that gamezino used for the sole purpose to help people get back what they had lost due to the hack. Tips instead worked out a way to bypass the harp rather than to create a hack.

Since the gamezino scandal, spAser removed the hack however gamezino were in business for a while beforehand and modified the cheat to suit themselves.

I have only ever read one post from spAser and i got only a quarter in and found that it was a hack and Ive never read another one since.

spAnser is THE single source of upcoming info for Tapped Out. A lot of people only refer to him as the creator of the hack that GameZino uses but he is so much more than that and he didn’t create the mod for people to make money off of. I think it’s really unfair for people to only refer to him by the mod he created. Any spoiler info that is on the internet has come from him and him alone. Thee are other people that can view the files but no one has seemed to reach the popularity of spAnser. The harp of death has nothing to do with spAnser even though he made a fix for it.

You will find that this is not actually true. Mike condoned hacking and published an article regarding this, this was live until Tips told him to take it down. He followed this up with an articles claimingnto have used the donut hack.

That was before he knew that there was a legit version of the game. Once he had the real deal he never used hacks or mods again. He admitted his mistake and that he did something wrong. We have all made errors, there’s no need bring it up again once a confession and amendment is done.

Hi Pat.
That is in the past. Its time to forget that now. If you read carefully, you will also realise that when he realised, he restarted.
Anymore talk about hacks or cheats on this site, positive or negative on this site will be deleted from now on. I don’t know about the others but i am a freemium player (Sorry EA but my wife …) and when I hear the words hack or cheat i get really angry. Wheres the fun of cheating? Speeding the game with donuts only to complain about nothing to do because you’ve finished squidport and krustyland. Well for us who don’t cheat or hack, the game is very enjoyable and there is always something to do until recently there has been too much to do. EA just gave us a years worth of content and some of you passed it in a week.
What im saying is DON’T complain if you have nothing to do. Renovate you Springfield.
Dont talk about hacks or cheats unless its related to a problem. Stay honest.
And don’t put down the staff of tstotopix.

We are here to help and unlike tips, we are giving you a voice too. I’ve decided any nasty messages will be put aside and you will be contacted and blacklisted. Im sorry but im sick of it and most people don’t want it. I don’t want to see this site following tips website.
Thanks for the understanding and co operation.

Thank you Mickus! You have the very best freemium town I’ve ever seen (still needs more land though) and it is better than the majority of my neighbours towns :-)
I will pass gz-crap on the relevant posts, “gz busted”s. But I agree; no more hack/mods comments, bad or good. Aside from the gz-crap (being conned into buying mods) all problems related to hacks and cheats are selfinflicted and not our problem.
Nasty messages are (unfortunatly) a part of a public blog. How about I just censor the nasty parts and then pass it? Ex [insult to xx censored by Em] That way the commentor successfully insulted someone and the readers can decide whether the commentor is a troll or not.
A Happy piece is comming soon as I think we all could do with some Happy after the disaster and readjustment :D

Thanks. As for the comments, most people are great but for the selected few, i am a relaxed, laid back, friendly and easy going guy but i am sick of the minority who think its ok to attack people trying to help for free. Im putting my foot down now. No swearing (several times i have had to edit out taboo words. Some tsto players are as young as 8 who read this site) and most important dont bite the hand that feeds you. I don’t mind people having their day but a comment like the one above or the comment that i put through and spent 10 minutes in a reply because of a false accusation that T from tips was a hacker is absolutely bollocks. There’s no place for those kind of comments here.

“He created the hack that gamezino used for the sole purpose to help people get back what they had lost due to the hack”

Well, come on, that’s obviously not true.

Even if it started that way, he kept updating the hack and updating the hack, taking requests, eventually making it so that you could log in, get any limited time item that was no longer available, get any number of donuts that you wanted [at one point, he modified it so that the houses themselves would give you donuts in addition to dollars and XP points], get any number of boardwalk tiles that you wanted… he even added a new building for people to play with, which has apparently caused problems now that he is no longer supporting the hack.

I agree, he didn’t try to make money off of it, and these guys who stole his work and used it to scam people are far worse, but let’s not pretend that he wasn’t enjoying hacking into the system for its own sake.

I agree. There was no need for any hack. Mr T never supported any hack and solved the riddle of the harp without needing one. spAnser was the person behind the hack so i think you need to get you facts straight. T was always legit about helping people and he did NOT condone hacking. It wasn’t the right way but spAnser doesn’t deserve all the blame. People could have wrote into EA explaining their situation but in saying that and even EA play a little role here in the blame game. If their customer service was better than this may not have happened.

The original tips didn’t use the hack – he used iFunbox on an unjailbroken iPhone to look at the script files. Only once, when the images. Only for the Squidport update, when the images were posted everywhere, did he use any of SpAnser’s info.

Weird. Still playing for me http://youtu.be/PH6oSXWL2B4
Just the 15 year old kid rambling about no more gamezino. Ill mention that he-within 10 minutes- also trolled Mike S. on Reddit and managed to put up a new walkthrough, which if I didn’t know better, I’d wonder if English was his first language. Man, they need a grammar checker….

Please be wary of this information, or, as I suspect, misinformation. This could be a ploy to get last minute customers that will be followed by an announcement that says something to the effect that due to overwhelming response we are keeping our doors open. It would not be the first time that untruths have been spoken by the organizers behind the g****o site. :(

So we should hope that EA doesn’t care so any jerkoff can con people and lie about their services and potentially get their customer’s accounts banned? EA doesn’t care about whether someone hacks the game, every game ever made has been hacked. What they care about is people seeking to get rich off of a hack that was never intended on generating income or charging people. The minute a cent is exchanged EA needs to care and I totally support their stance on stopping GameZino.

Um, no…..we should hope that they’re permanently out of business. I’m just saying it’s odd that they’re now so aggressively marketing, despite what must be a solar flare of attention.
Chill, Mike S.- this isn’t personal. Ask yourself whether your comments drive the conversation or are defending yourself from some ill-perceived grievance.

You know, the more I think of it, the fishier it seems… If EA was/is shutting them down, wouldn’t they do it in one fell swoop? Like, suddenly? Seems odd that they’d give a 3 day heads up-basically a license to print money with their “dying” breaths…. Just my 2 cents.

Yeah…but what’s to stop him from incorporating to protect his ass and then relaunching the site “under new management”? Very curious to see what will happen. Also kind of shocked there’s been no public statement from EA, considering the number of people (if gz’s numbers are to believed even by half it’s 5,000 orders) affected.

what? they are a scam site and use hacks! people have been scammed and money taken from them! They deserve to suffer and they are the people who ripped TSTO Tips apart and you actually like them for this!

To be fair, I got tricked into believing what they said about buying gift cards, but they did deliver the goods I paid for, though they were delivered late. Now I know they used a hack, so they were stealing from EA, but they never screwed with my game.

Excuse me but they did not “help” anyone. They misled a ton of people into thinking they were a legitimate service and into thinking we at Tips supported them. They haven’t helped me in now way shape or form and in fact have caused a great headache for me personally. It’s your right to support them and their hacking but it is not your right to disrespect us as a whole. And no one wants anyone to suffer but what they do is illegal in that they accept money for services that only EA should be receiving.

I had to shut down my credit card because random money was going out to an unkown source and possibly could have been gamezino. And you are supporting this?! EA will shut it down either way and I’m hoping they are gone by tomorrow!

I suggest you get your facts straight before you cock off at anyone about how wonderful Gamezino is/was. They used hacks to charge people for in-game content and lied about their methods. These hacks/mods were freely available on the Internet. Many people believed that a trusted resource was pointing the TSTOTips.com fans to the GZ site as a legitimate way of obtaining discounted donuts. These people may now have their games and/or accounts suspended.

Oh dear, are you sure the thing with your credit card is gamezino? I’m getting a little worried here since I was one of those poor fools who fell for their scam, knowing next to nothing about hacks Should have been more careful. Sure taught me never to trust one single website…
But, there’s an up: you folks are here and do a great job. Thanks a million, you rock!

I wouldn’t worry too much. People are getting a little nuts over the whole thing. In all honesty everyone who used GameZino saw it as an end-around. Whether they were misled into thinking tstotips supported it or not, the main selling point was a lot for nothing. Don’t be ashamed of it, hell we shop for our families the same way, what can I get the most of for the least amount of money. Doesn’t make anyone stupid or foolish, it makes us human. That’s the genius in GameZino’s scam. BUT do not worry and get all paranoid, EA is well aware of many people getting duped into using GameZino. However, either by now or at a certain point since this mess if anyone continues to use services like GameZino then you get what’s coming. Now that the scam has been revealed and everyone has done their admissions everyone should be well aware that NO money should ever be paid to anyone other than EA. You’ll be fine my friend and EA will sort all of this mess out without deleting half of their customers.

Hi. It isn’t up to them to retelease items. I’ve been playing since St Patricks Day so Ive missed all the valentines, Christmas, Halloween and thanksgiving stuff and the Mapple store which I would have loved to buy however, by altering the time in the game to get these items is called hacking and I would rather wait 10 years for EA to rerelease content then hack the game in any manner.

I also received the email this morning and glad to see they are shutting down for good….I also just got my money back from the credit card company after disputing my purchase which I cancelled weeks ago

No matter what happens with GameZino Tips is dead. Even if GameZino and Allen backed out Mr. T is long gone after what happened and probably lost all interest in everything. The site is gone, at least it’s reputation is anyway. It will never be what is once was.

Respectfully, I have to disagree. Only those with institutional knowledge know the whole story. If you’d just started tapping and googled the game, they’d come up first. Theoretically, (and I mention this with no knowledge of the legal sitch…) they can continue to monetize that site and even promote the scam under a different cover (ie name, website…).

Oh they will, I’m not saying they won’t continue to operate as a website and I’m sure they will. But eventually as word gets around more people will stop coming. Hey they may just as well keep going and gain a lot of readers. Either way I could care less. I’m here now and will do everything in my power to keep my site successful and to never allow it to fall like Tips did.

True…..but how does word get around? Not everybody is on the message boards…. It has to grow organically, and it’ll be some time before tips drops from first in the search engine. I’m not being negative, and I urge you success, but so far there’s nothing public enough to move the casual tapper.

My boyfriend got one of those emails this morning. I am SO happy that the scam they had passed has been busted. I just hope that EA is ready to forgive anyone that bought in to the hoax. As several other people have mentioned, I believe EA will just move on.

Completely agree. At least man up and say what you did. However, considering that there could be some legal action in the future by EA, that probably explains why they are staying mum on the confessions.